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The Bowl

There is a very beautiful article about “the bowl” as such, as every day use object with its quiet and fascinating aura, in the New York Times. It’s illustrated with a magnificent ceramics bowl by Glen Lukens, an artist, I never heard about (more about him and this bowl here). It’s not glass but ceramics (but we are no ideologues). The picture is from the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland:

The Museum just organizes an exhibition about Bowls, not only ceramics, but also glass bowls: “Object Focus: The Bowl”. New York Times author Julie Lasky quotes the curator, Namita Gupta Wiggers: “Consumers, she said, covet not just tables, but Noguchi tables; not just chairs, but Eames chairs; not just lamps, but Ingo Maurer lamps. The bowl does not perform the same star turn in the object world, Ms. Wiggers believes, and she attributes its background role to its close connection with craft. Many magnificent bowls have been made by ceramic and glass artists working outside of mass-market commerce, detached from the publicity machinery that promotes recognition and value. She would like us to seek not just bowls, but Marguerite Wildenhain bowls and Lucie Rie bowls, to name just two esteemed artisans. At the same time, she would like us to respect the anonymous vernacular bowl that descends from generations of well-wrought tradition. ”